[AmericasBeekeeper]

They will ball the cage, when they get through the candy plug wll be her last day alive inevitably.

 

[Freon11]

So if I put a Caged queen on the entrance of a hive that is queen right they should ball the cage?.

 

[concrete-bees]

you will need to watch them close - what ive done is open the hive and set the queen cage arcoss the frames above the bees - the bees will come to her- then pick up the queen cage and watch the bees - if they are inserting there tounges to feed her they most likely need her but if the workers are biting at the wire and or trying to sting at her - then id say that have a queen and wish not to have a new one --

you will see the differnce in the hive mood if they have a queen already - its rather more like a riot!!!!

hope this helps

also if you are unsure if you have a queen wait 3-4 days and check for eggs -

 

[Beeslave]

Just because there is no eggs doesn't mean they are queenless. I had some hives last year that had no eggs but didn't "act" queenless. I searched and found the queens. They were full sized like a mated queen and not short/fast moving like a virgin. 2 wks later I checked them again. They still had a queen but no eggs.

I had also given them a frame of fresh brood when I found the queen the first time. They never made supercedure cells. This had me stumped. She(they)) weren't even laying drone brood. I pinched them queens and installed new ones. 2 wks later I had fresh eggs and a nice brood pattern.

Maybe this stock would shut down to easy because of lack of flow but I don't want that in my operation. Maybe these queens just failed but their pheremone was strong enough to make the colony think she was still good. I don't know. I lost to many new queens by installing them into what I thought was a queenless colony that didn't "act" queenless but had no fresh eggs or larva. They had capped brood.